At least 368 more people were injured, the national civil protection agency said in Rome, and an unknown number remained trapped in the rubble of collapsed and damaged buildings in the cluster of ancient hilltop towns and villages, some almost entirely razed by the 6.2-magnitude quake.

Haiti’s central government has stopped the UN food program that’s kept thousands fed since the January quake, even though many are still without homes or jobs

By Jessica Leeder

April 23 2010

Jacmel, Haiti —By government decree, the food and hunger situation in Haiti has returned to normal.

The trouble is, for most people here, real life has yet to catch up.

In an effort to rev up the economy and motivate people to return to work, Haiti’s central government has forced aid organizations to stop the free food distributions that have sustained a hefty swath of the population – 30,000 bellies per day in Jacmel alone – since January’s earthquake.

“They don’t want to breed this dependency,” said Hazem El Zein, head of programs for the World Food Program’s Jacmel sub-office. “Basically we are following what the government wants us to do.”

Although the WFP has led the emergency food effort since the Jan. 12 quake, when Mr. El Zein and others began handing out high-calorie biscuits to more than 4,000 people clustered at the city’s airport, the organization has been asked to revert to their “normal” pre-earthquake programming. That consists mostly of providing school meals for children and nutrition supplements for babies, pregnant women and nursing mothers.

Final deliveries of the free sacks of rice, flour, beans, oil and salt were made by WFP trucks last week, and community leaders in camps for the internally displaced were given final notice of the abrupt program change.

Immediately, worries among local government officials and the population began to sprout over whether it’s too soon to institute such a dramatic shift in food strategy.

A young girl eats a bowl of rice and beans, a food staple in Haiti at the Abri Pwovizwa Shelter Camp in Jacmel, Haiti. The group of families, some 295 homeless people who are living in the yard of a church in Jacmel, Haiti, are one of many groups no longer receiving free food drops since the Haitian central government ordered aid organizations to stop providing free food distributions.

Thousands of people remain without homes or jobs in Jacmel. And while rubble-clearing efforts fuelled by cash-for-work programs have forged some noticeable progress on city streets, the 200 gourdes (about $5) per-day jobs have not proven to be a panacea for the stalled economy.

More cash-for-work and work-for-food positions will be created to help families bridge the difficult transition back to self-sufficiency, but they don’t yet exist. Organizations and government officials are still wrangling over details of the jobs and who will be responsible for managing them. Meanwhile, many people who still rely on food handouts for the bulk of their diets – which usually consist of just one meal per day – have no idea how they’ll make due without free food distributions in the short term.

“I don’t know what the consequences will be, but I’m sure it’s going to be a problem,” said Frantz Magellan Pierre-Louis, a spokesperson for Jacmel Mayor Edo Zenny.

At Pinchinat this week, a former school soccer field that is Jacmel’s largest camp for the internally displaced, what was once the field cooking area – a section of grass littered with small fires and piles of charcoal the cooking committee used to heat daily meals for residents – was abandoned. By mid-afternoon, when most kids would normally begin lining up for their daily bowl full of rice and beans, few people can be seen eating.

At the small independent encampment at the L’Eglise Wesleyenne the outdoor kitchen hasn’t been used this week. Although the cooking committee had been carefully maintaining an emergency store of rice and beans for fear the food supply would end, they have no oil with which to cook.

Midi Jackson, the camp spokesman, said no one has come to the camp from any organization to talk about what they should do in the short term. On his own, he’s been advising families to try to raise a bit of money from friends with means, and fend for themselves.

At the WFP, officials are optimistic that early bumps that have accompanied the food shift will soon be smoothed out. Plans are in the works to establish programs that boost local agriculture and support local markets. Some are only days away from implementation.

Before the earthquake, the organization had established a small footprint in Jacmel with a small food-for-work program, a school-feeding schedule for 57,000 students across the country’s south-eastern department, and a health and nutrition program to prevent malnourishment among 10,500 mostly rural young and female beneficiaries.

Mr. El Zein said he feels the goodwill that the WFP built up through that work will hold the organization in good stead while the current kinks are worked out.

“It’s a huge step to get the people to understand that, yes, free food has stopped but normal projects have continued plus we’re doing cash for work,” he said, adding: “We made very good relations with the people. They know us. The trust that the food will be there in the schools.

“If we hadn’t made these relations with the people … you would find 2,000 people at the gate,” he said, gesturing to the solid steel gate that secures the WFP’s walled Jacmel compound, which is patrolled by shotgun toting guards. “People know there is food in here.” Source

No jobs, no money, no food. I can see this being a real problem for many. Seems to me the put the cart, before the horse. They need a better strategy, then just stopping food aid. This could cause riots in the streets.

I guess slavery in Haiti will be alive and well. Some may even volunteer to be slaves just to get food.

As needs remain, Haiti must be given capacity to ensure access to medical care for its population
International aid must consider a direct financial support to the health system in Haïti. Decisions at the New York conference need to allow the Haitian health system to continue to address the population’s immediate medical needs.
Port-au-Prince/New York
While the majority of the Haitian population is still extremely vulnerable, the UN donor conference to be held in New York on 31 March must not take measures that would limit the access to health care of the population, says international medical organisation Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF).

Since the earthquake of 12 January nearly all public and many private medical structures have offered free of charge health care. Meanwhile plans have been disclosed to progressively reinstate hospital fees as early as mid-April.

“Making access to health care contingent upon someone’s financial means would totally ignore the reality that we see in the streets and makeshift camps in Haiti,” said MSF emergency coordinator Karline Kleijer. “Hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced and live in rickety huts made of plastic sheeting, tents or ruined houses, with one latrine for a few hundred people on average. Shelter, hygiene, water and medical care remain a priority need.

“Short term humanitarian needs remain huge and unmet, and the arrival of the rainy and hurricane seasons threatens to cause further deterioration of the present living conditions. We have already seen large parts of camps collapsing during the recent rains. The collapse or flooding of shelters and tents could force many of the displaced to move again.”

Respiratory infections and diarrheal diseases are today the two main diseases that MSF treats. Earthquake victims continue to need post-operative and rehabilitative care, physiotherapy as well as psychological counseling. In addition, the population at large needs obstetric, pediatric, and trauma care.

“Haitians must have access to an efficient health system,” declared Dr. Christophe Fournier, MSF international president. “Necessary financial resources for the health structures to function can not be drawn from the extremely precarious population.”

International aid must consider a direct financial support to the health system in Haïti. Decisions at the New York conference need to allow the Haitian health system to continue to address the population’s immediate medical needs.

MSF has been assisting Haitian communities since 19 years. Today, some 3,300 Haitian and international MSF staff are supporting government hospitals and run facilities on its own. Since the earthquake, MSF teams have performed more than 4,000 surgeries, provided psychological counseling to over 20,000 people, and treated 53,000 patients. MSF has distributed 14,000 tents and close to 20,000 non-food item kits (including kitchen and hygiene kits, jerry cans, blankets and plastic sheeting). MSF is funding its activities in Haiti exclusively with private donations and is therefore no stakeholder in the donor conference in New York.

Medical needs in Haiti remain high as MSF moves into next crucial phase

In response to the dire situation confronting people living in makeshift camps or on the street ten weeks after the quake, MSF is stepping up the distribution of tents and plastic sheeting, as well as blankets and hygiene and cooking kits.

HIGHLIGHTS

Ten weeks after the January 12 earthquake that left up to 300,000 people injured, medical needs remain immense in Haiti, and they continue to grow. A crucial phase has begun with thousands of injured people requiring long term medical care just as some of the health providers who responded to the initial emergency phase have begun to discharge patients and leave the country . ?MSF is expanding its capacity to care for the many wounded requiring extensive postoperative care – including secondary surgeries, physical therapy, rehabilitation, and mental healthcare – for at least the next year. In recent weeks, more than 200 patients have been referred to MSF medical facilities by other medical teams leaving the country. ? MSF is also focusing on primary health care, with the opening of new out-patient departments and the creation of additional capacity for secondary health services, including emergency obstetrics, intensive care for malnourished children, and inpatient care for paediatrics and adults.

In response to the dire situation confronting people living in makeshift camps or on the street ten weeks after the quake, MSF is stepping up the distribution of tents and plastic sheeting, as well as blankets and hygiene and cooking kits.

Port au Prince – Saint-Louis Hospital: Surgical activities are ongoing in a 200-bed capacity inflatable hospital, which includes two operating theaters. An additional operating room is planned for treating treat patients suffering from burns. At the moment, around 200 patients are hospitalized and 770 surgical operations have been performed since setup. The hospital provides complete post-operative care: medical and surgical follow up, physiotherapy, psychological and social care. The hospital aims to treat the same cases that were treated at the now destroyed facility of La Trinité: major traumas (road accident, gunshots, burn victims, etc.) and health care for victims of sexual violence.

Port au Prince – Choscal Hospital in Cité Soleil: MSF intervened in this Ministry of Health hospital initially focusing on earthquake-related trauma. There are two operating theaters for major surgery, one for minor surgery. MSF also works in the emergency room and the maternity ward. The hospital has a 100 bed capacity, all under tents as the building has been slightly damaged by the earthquake and patients are still afraid to get in. The team has rearranged the hospital into a general hospital serving an extremely precarious population. Psychological care continues for all patients and caretakers.

Since the earthquake, 2705 (1852 new cases and 853 dressing) emergency cases treated in the emergency room, 874 trauma (trauma, wounds and burns), 201 trauma due to violence (57 gun shot, other aggressions by knife, machete, stone, bottle,…), 718 surgical interventions, 91 major orthopedic interventions including 37 amputations and 222 wounds operations; 363 deliveries including 39 cesarean section. Still a daily average of about 2/3 violence-related injuries, including gunshot and machete wounds.

Port au Prince- Site Office du Tourisme: Site functional since February 22. At present, 40 patients are hospitalized and receiving post operative and medical care, mental health care, and physiotherapy.

Port au Prince – site Lycée with its 80 beds of post operative care, was closed. Patients were transferred to the OCB facilities.

Port-au-Prince – Bicentenaire: Post-op, emergency and surgical facility with two operating theaters and pediatric and obstetric services. Presently 41 patients hospitalized in the 77-bed structure. A total of 90 beds foreseen. Mental health services are also provided.

Carrefour Arts et Metiers orthopedic hospital: Around 40 surgical interventions are performed every day in this 135-bed trauma and post-op hospital, which houses two operating theaters, and one of the few x-ray machines in the city. Orthopedic surgery, skin grafts, and muscle flaps are being performed and post-op care and rehabilitation are provided. Currently, 80 patients are hospitalized. Rehabilitation care is offered to patients in collaboration with Handicap International. Psychological care is offered to patients and families.

Léogâne: 90-bed hospital. Maternity activities are increasing; 50 deliveries and three C-sections performed in the past week. .

Jacmel: Full outpatient and inpatient services are available under tents (81 beds) as the main hospital was badly damaged. Surgery is ongoing in the hospital’s operating theater (services offered; internal medicine, surgery, maternity, pediatrics, emergency). Mental health services are also provided.

POST-OPERATIVE CARE

Although a full range of post-operative care is offered in all MSF supported structures where surgery is performed, some sites are specifically dedicated to welcome patients after surgery.

Promesse: Post-op structure with an initial capacity of 50 beds. Handicap International physiotherapists are working in collaboration with MSF. 46 patients are currently hospitalised. Mental health care provided.

Delmas 30: The first 70 patients and their caretakers have been transferred to this new post-op tented center, from the inflatable hospital structure in Saint Louis. The center will have more than 100 beds for people needing physiotherapy and mental health support. They will be transferred in the middle of March to the MSF facility in the Port-au-Prince neighbourhood of Tabarre (capacity: 140 beds)

Sarthe: On February 23 MSF opened a new, a 203-bed post-operative center in a converted soft drink factory in the Sarthe area of Port-au-Prince (potential capacity of 300 beds). All patients from Chancerelle and Choscal who need further post-operative care (wound care, more specialised orthopaedic surgery, reconstruction surgery) were referred to this new structure. Up to now 150 patients were admitted. Handicap International physiotherapists are working in collaboration with MSF to optimize reeducation (including prosthesis for the amputee) and mental health support is provided as well.

SPECIALISED CARE : NEPHRO + NUTRITION + EMERGENCY OBSTETRICS

Port au Prince – General Hospital The nephrology team did an initial handover to the Ministry of Health, with donations of materials and three dialysis machines to the nephrology unit in the general hospital. Currently, 30 chronic patients are receiving dialysis. Another five dialysis machines has been installed recently to increase capacity of the unit. A nephrologist came for one week to give specific trainings.

Carrefour stabilisation center for malnutrition: Stabilization center and ambulatory feeding center for severely malnourished children. There are currently 22 children hospitalized.

Isaie Jeanty, Emergency Obstetrics Hospital: MSF is working in collaboration with the Ministry of health for the maternity and emergency obstetric care in this 85-bed Ministry of Health hospital. This is the main referral hospital for Port-au-Prince for complicated and eclampsia cases.PRIMARY CARE

Port au Prince – Martissant: This MSF structure provides an emergency and stabilization center through an outpatient department and a 30-bed inpatient department. There is also a 15-bed maternity service. The center has seen more than 3892 consultations since the earthquake and 1967 dressings. More than 1000 trauma had been treated including 100 by violence.The team is preparing to move some patients back into the undamaged structure.

Port au Prince – Delmas 24: A new health center opened on February 15 in the Delmas area of Port-au-Prince. About 150 consultations are offered every day. MSF plans to open five out patient departments in total in the Delmas area (including in Saint Louis Hospital and Delmas 24).

Port-au-Prince – “Tourism”, in front of the Champ de Mars: Outpatient activities began February 15; average of 160 consultations per day.

Leogane, Dufort and region: OPD is operational in the city of Leogane on the site of Hopital Sainte Croix. At the Dufort fixed clinic site, approximately 250 consultations are carried out each day, with referrals to Leogane when required. In addition, MSF teams are operating mobile clinic activities in 20 locations, between Gressier and Petit Goave. In total, 2,130 consultations were carried out last week.

Carrefour Feuille: A team of one nurse, three doctors and one midwife is running a tent clinic in a camp for 9,000 homeless people in the area. Main pathologies are now diarrhea, skin diseases, upper respiratory infections, fever, gyneco cases, traumas and increasing requests for psychological counseling. An average of 130 consultations are carried out per day. The team is performing dressing changes and providing vaccinations. Mental health services are also provided.

Carrefour, Village Grace IDP camp: The basic health care unit includes an outpatient department, antenatal and post natal care and a mental health component in a site that is home to 15,000 displaced persons. 150 patients are seen daily. 250 dressings are done per week. Vaccination campaign for DTP and measles was carried out last week. Psychological care is offered to patients and families.

Carrefour, International Grace Hospital: A new hospital, located next to Grace camp, will offer out-patient services by the end of this month. Other planned activities include pediatric care and emergency services.

Carrefour, Shikina clinic, Waney 87. An out-patient health center offering basic health care, antenatal and post natal care, as well as mental health services. This is an urban area with many displaced are living in small groups.

Carrefour, outreach activities: A MSF team is working in a number of sites in the Carrefour area, including in displaced persons camps, homes for the elderly, clinics and orphanages.

Petionville Golf Club Camp (Golf course): A health care clinic offering basic health care and ante-natal care to pregnant women, referral services and psycho social counseling in this camp where 40,000 people are estimated to live. About 150 consultations have been provided every day (ANC, PNC as well as mental health).

MENTAL HEALTH

Psychological care is routinely offered to patients who have been through major surgery in MSF supported structures. But there are other mental health activities targetting specific groups.

Sarthe + Choscal + Martissant : A team of psychologists is still focusing on the patients and the caretakers inside the three hospitals, but as also shifted towards providing counseling to displaced people living in makeshift camps around the structures.

Carrefour, Grace Village IDP camp: Psychological care (individual and group sessions) is offered in the camp, through the clinic and through outreach workers who work in the camp as well as in the surrounding neigborhoods.

Carrefour, MSF Field hospital: A team of psychologists is supporting the patients.

Delmas, Petion Ville Club IDP camp: Psychological care is offered in the camp through individual sessions and group councelling.

Bicentenaire, Promess, Jacmel and Carrefour Feuille: Mental health activites taking place in MSF facilities in all these locations. A team of Payasos sin Fronteras (Clowns Without Borders) worked in collaboration with MSF – their project has now finished.

NON FOOD ITEM DISTRIBUTIONS

Port au Prince – Ecole Saint Louis: 1,800 tents distributed in the camp near the inflatable hospital to an estimated 8,500 people. NFI (hygiene and cooking sets) will be distributed in the coming days to the same population.

Cité Soleil: 2954 tents were distributed in several camps spread within Cité Soleil slums. Still ongoing with additional NFI kits distribution to come.

WATER AND SANITATION

Marrtissant, Cite Soleil, Chancerelle: Water distribution is continuing via 15 bladders, including one in Martissant, 11 around Cité Soleil, one in Chancerelles, and three in Sarthe, focusing on IDPS close to the medical facilities. MSF has also undertaken the cleaning and emptying of community latrines inside the slum of Cité Soleil, which had been backed up for a prolonged period.

Carrefour, Grace Village Camp: MSF is providing 76m3/day water for 15,000 IDPs and constructing 45 latrines. Additionally, 45 showers will be constructed and 15 Portocabs have been installed..

Carrefour, various sites: chlorination treatment of tanks/wells and small interventions in other areas. Chancerelle, Aviation camp: 50 latrines, 50 showers and 20 washing places under construction. Water provided by MSF to part of camp. Installing 30,000 liter tank.

Leogane (periphery): Water distribution: target of 200,000 litres per day. Will install two latrine blocks in gathering spots, and, if used, will increase numbers. Again, water and sanitation activities will be in support of mobile clinics and around MSF hospital structures.

Jacmel: MSF installed a water bladder, drinking points, and ten latrines in St. Michel Hospital.

Grand Goave: Sanitation facilities established in four camps: Lifeline, Park Ferrus, Servants et Tit Paradise: 4-6 latrines per block, showers, bladders, and seven water distribution sites for a total of 7,000 beneficiaries.

Port au Prince – In Petionville and Carrefour Feuille: portable or fixed latrines, portable showers, waste areas and water bladders were installed for a total population of 31,800 people. MSF has carried out out water storage and distribution, constructed washing areas, showers, latrines, waste areas and hygiene promotion in the following camps :

Haiti: Public Health Crisis Looming and Where is Media?

By Georgianne Nienaber

March 29 2010

The rainy season is about to hit earthquake-ravaged Haiti. The meteorological forecast for next week calls for thunderstorms beginning this Wednesday, lasting at least through the following Tuesday, and Dr. Jim Wilson is worried. Wilson is the Executive Director of Praecipio International, which is the Haiti Epidemic Advisory System (HEAS), based in Petionville-Port au Prince, Haiti. Wilson is also internationally known as the person who identified the H1N1 outbreak in Mexico and was a key player and founder of ARGUS, a global detection and tracking system for the early detection of biological events. He identified SARS outbreaks, H1NI, Marburg hemorrhagic fever, and issued the first warning of H1N1 resurgence in the United States in the summer of 2009. Wilson has been warning about the increase in diarreal disease in Haitian infants, and his warning is falling on deaf ears in the mainstream media.

For anyone who has been to Haiti and observed ground conditions there, the reasons are obvious. During the week of March 12 we were in some of the IDP camps. After a minor rainstorm floodwaters caused the overflow of pit latrines, bringing raw sewage into the camps and contaminating local water sources. This was in the camps that had pit latrines. A camp of 5,500 people near the slums of Cite Soleil had no latrines or sanitation of any sort. Feces, vomit and urine were everywhere in the surrounding bush. Obviously, contact with raw sewage greatly increases the chance of exposure to waterborne pathogens that cause diarrheal disease. Prior to the January 12th earthquake, diarrheal disease was already a leading cause of illness and death for children in Haiti. Now, children and adults are living in “shelters” that in the best conditions amount to salvaged pieces of tin providing makeshift “roofs,” to tattered pieces of plastic held together with sticks. The USAID “fact sheet” about tent material would be laughable if the consequences were not so tragic.
On March 11, a USAID/OFDA flight delivered 750 rolls of plastic sheeting to Haiti. To date, USAID/OFDA has provided 15,480 rolls of plastic sheeting to meet post-earthquake shelter needs, benefiting approximately 774,000 people. The ongoing distribution of USAID/OFDA-funded plastic sheeting supports Shelter Cluster efforts to provide shelter materials to approximately 240,000 households before the likely June onset of the hurricane season.

Here is a video of what it is like to live under plastic sheeting. Imagine this scenario in the hurricane season.

This video was taken on March 12, 2010.

The same “fact sheet” indicates that the United States has provided $769,948,358 in aid to Haiti. Where it has gone is anyone’s guess. By the time Freedom of Information Act requests have been filed and freelance investigative journalists have done their homework, it will be too late to assist the 1.3 million estimated homeless. Infants will start dying by the thousands before the media takes note, and an outbreak of even more serious waterborne disease will likely occur.

The lies are almost frightening in the Machiavellian planning and presentation. Drive along the main roads and you will see “camps” of moderate white tents, set in orderly rows with the banners of NGOs prominently displayed. This is what you will likely see on CNN.

Take a little time to venture off the beaten path–you will not have to go far–and the reality hits you right between the eyes.

Wilson suggests that there is another area of concern that has not been examined by health officials here in the States and in Haiti.

The reason for this high level of concern is obvious to all of us who are working on the ground. An extension of that concern may be seen when considering the fragile nature of the current ad hoc medical infrastructure in the quake-affected areas. It is our assessment this infrastructure comprised mainly of volunteers is easily overwhelmed by a sudden influx of patients, particularly pediatric patients. The higher the clinical acuity, the more easily it is to overwhelm.

Dr. Wilson is being mild in his public comments. Having seen this
Amputate a leg and send someone home. To what? Fix a broken arm and send a child, homeless, to an IDP camp where there is seldom a doctor or food to be found.

We found this stash of “medical supplies” at an ad hoc camp of 2500 outside of Leogane.

This ad hoc infrastructure is both limited and easily overwhelmed. Because of these conditions, rapid identification of diarrheal disease hot spots when they emerge is critical, so that aid can be moved quickly to prevent further spread of disease and exhaustion of medical resources.

Is Haiti prepared? Probably not.

There are 800,000 doses of the oral rehydration agent, Pedialyte, stored, but it will not be enough if a large outbreak occurs. Infants can die within 24 hours if not given the proper palliative care. There are not enough oral and IV antibiotics in-country. Even if drugs and rehydration kits were freely available, there is not an adequate distribution system in place to deliver supplies and no one to coordinate at many of the camps, except those located with the guarded compounds of the NGOs. Haitian mothers have not been told how to make simple rehydration solutions of salts and sugars.

The current Haitian public health surveillance consists of forms submitted to the Haiti Ministry of Health once a week and an under-developed network of sites to support laboratory testing.

Dr. Wilson suggests that along with the forms, health workers share information about the types of health events they are witnessing.

This is referred to as “informal surveillance,” and we offer the following Google group, the “Haiti Epidemic Advisory System” and the InSTEDD-supported SMS/text messaging alert system called Geochat to facilitate communication among us. In this Google group we will be sharing insights into what to look for and examples of informal surveillance in action. Please note this group is only for ground-based Haiti responders. The link to the Google group may be found here, and instructions for how to sign up for the SMS/text messaging Geochat service is found on the group website.

Our team encountered the Haitian Minister of Health, Dr. Alex Larsen, in Petionville one evening. It was a chance encounter, since all of the government offices were destroyed during the quake and officials who are still alive are hard to find.

We asked the purple-shirted chain-smoking minister if we might have a conversation with him after he finished his conversation and dinner. He said “yes,” but left without even a goodbye or “we will talk later.” Maybe Anderson Cooper can get him to open up. If he can find him.

A journalist friend in Rwanda, Patrick Bigabo, sent me a message on FACEBOOK that pretty much sums up the state of media affairs with regard to Haiti.

“The problem with public affairs reporting in poor nations is that for the western media there is no news unless horror is ongoing. Real media has vanished.”

Chile earthquake: Troops sent in to deter looting and violence
Armed soldiers are patrolling the streets to help quell unrest and protect shops and banks as the death toll rises to 723

Devastation in the Chilean port city of Talcahuanao by the tsunami and earthquake. Photograph: Martin Bernetti/AFP/Getty Images

Armed troops today patrolled the streets of Chile for the first time in more than two decades as widespread looting in the south led President Michelle Bachelet to order 10,000 soldiers to protect supermarkets, pharmacies, banks and department stores.

Chilean National Television reported “neighbour versus neighbour” fighting in the coastal areas of Coronel and Lota as food shortages and lack of electricity caused by Saturday’s devastating earthquake created scenes of desperation.

By late this afternoon the news was filled with images of bands of men armed with rifles, metal stakes and hatchets stalking the streets of the coastal city of Concepción, attacking firefighters, torching a supermarket and adding an air of menace to the already tragic situation.

While life in the capital, Santiago, slowly returned to normal for most residents, Jacqueline van Rysselberghe, the mayor of Concepción, made a desperate plea for more troops and aid from the national government.

“We were distributing water in trucks and the trucks were assaulted. Now no one wants to distribute the water,” she said. “Fear is everywhere, armed men with pistols are attacking residential homes … send the largest number of troops possible.”

Smoke filled Concepción as looters burned a supermarket, and several firefighters were injured by falling debris.

In San Pedro de la Paz, a city next to Concepción, looters stripped a clinic clean of medicine and supplies.

“There was lots of shooting last night, then the military showed up,” said a resident, Rosa Medina, in an interview with TVN. Convoys of armed troops were sent to the region to provide logistical support, supplies and street patrols.

The government has raised the official earthquake toll to 723 killed and 19 missing, but reports from local communities suggest that hundreds more are missing, many feared washed out to sea. As rescue crews and journalists arrived at remote coastal areas, they found the heaviest damage was done by the tsunami that followed Saturday’s earthquake, flattening already fractured buildings. A Google application to find missing people registered more than 39,000 names.

Reports that six UK residents were missing from a hotel in the surf resort of Pichilemu have not been confirmed, the British embassy in Santiago said.

After initially saying that foreign aid would not be needed, Bachelet today asked the UN for aid.

Chilean officials called on the international community to donate temporary bridges, satellite phone equipment, water purification systems, dialysis machines and generators.

Field hospitals sent by the Brazilian and Argentine governments were expected to arrive tomorrow. Mariano Fernandez, the Chilean foreign minister, met foreign ambassadors to co-ordinate the aid. The US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, is due to arrive in Santiago tomorrow to meet Bachelet and discuss joint aid efforts.

Tens of thousands of Chileans built bonfires outside their homes and camped in the streets, afraid to live under damaged roofs and wary of looters. Many people housed their neighbours and volunteers brought tents and fresh water to families on the street, but patience wore thin as many survivors entered their third day without electricity, communications and fresh water.

Saturday morning’s 8.8 earthquake, one of the biggest ever recorded, hit southern Chile at the peak of the summer tourist season.

The coastal community of Constitución, home to 50,000 people, was packed with tourists for Noche Veneciana, a summer festival, when first the earthquake then waves estimated at 10 metres hit the town. Residents scoured the wreckage today for family members. Offshore, houses bobbed in the surf, testament to the near-complete destruction of the town.

In Concepción, rescue workers continued to dig through the rubble in an effort to reach survivors inside a 14-storey building that toppled over during the earthquake.

“I crawled through a hole, up a few metres. There was screaming. It was so dark, all I could see was a distant light,” said Alex Tapia, an Ecuadorean, who crawled from the remains of his sixth-floor apartment with his wife and child when the building collapsed. “We crawled out through that tunnel. People were trapped and yelling for help.”

An estimated 100 people are still inside the building.

Speaking outside the tangle of cement and steel, Commander Juan Carlos Subercaseux of the fire service said: “We have confirmation [that survivors exist] as someone broke glass. We can’t say how many are in there.”

In a grim effort to identify victims, firefighters placed a guitar, a saxophone and two laptops on the sidewalk and asked family members if they recognised them. More than half the apartments in the one-year-old building were empty, which lessened the death toll.

With autumn rains weeks away, officials scrambled to organise housing for the estimated 1 to 2 million Chileans who are homeless.

A limited air service began at Santiago’s international airport with a flight from Miami and Brazil landing this morning. Bus services inside Chile were limited as thousands of people attempted to head south in search of missing relatives. Source

Chile called for international aid on Monday as rescuers located earthquake survivors crying out desperately through the rubble and troops arrested dozens in a bid to contain looting.

The toll from Saturday’s 8.8-magnitude quake and a resulting tsunami that swept coastal towns rose to 723 while security fears deepened in the South American nation’s second city of Concepcion, the worst-hit urban area.

Troops deployed alongside police and deputy interior minister Patricio Rosende said one person was shot and killed as they clamped down on rampant looting overnight, making 160 arrests.

As aid pledges rolled in from around the world, with the European Union offering four million dollars, Japan three million and China one million, Chile shed its earlier reluctance and said it would now accept outside help.

The UN’s humanitarian coordination office (OCHA) in Geneva said it had been sent a list of priorities that included field hospitals, mobile bridges, communications equipment and disaster assessment and coordination teams.

The circumstances of the death of the looter were unclear and Rosende said the overnight curfews — the first in Chile since the end of Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship — had largely been obeyed.

“The public cooperated, it understood the need for a curfew. One has to understand the anguish that many people feel. Because on top of the constant aftershocks, there is the darkness, the uncertainty.”

After touring the disaster zone, President-elect Sebastian Pinera said “the situation is worse than expected” and recounted hearing cries for help when he entered a collapsed building not yet reached by rescue teams.

Rescuers with heat sensors and sniffer dogs picked through the debris of shattered buildings in Concepcion and special cameras showed three, perhaps four, survivors trapped in the twisted ruins of a 15-story apartment block.

“We’ll have to work with the precision of watchmakers,” said fire chief Juan Carlos Subercaseaux. “May God help us.”

Chile crews work to free survivors trapped by quake rubble

Another team worked to extract a fifth survivor from the building, knocked onto its back by the force of the quake. Eight bodies were pulled Sunday from the giant structure.

Injured people slept outside for a second night, rattled every so often by an aftershock — there have been a staggering 121 with a magnitude greater than 5.0 since Saturday’s quake, which was one of the most powerful ever recorded.

Rosende said the government had purchased all the food in the city’s big supermarkets so it could be distributed for free, and a barge and two Chilean air force planes would arrive later in the day with more supplies.

Pinera said the situation in Concepcion was dangerous: “When we have a catastrophe of this magnitude, when there is no electricity and no water, the population… starts losing the sense of public order.”

AFP witnessed looters setting fire to one supermarket, as people raking another store’s ruins said they were just people trying to look after their children.

“Water, I ask only for water,” said one young woman as she shook an empty plastic bottle.

The scale of the devastation was still being uncovered, especially in the seaside towns and villages engulfed by massive waves minutes after the gigantic quake struck at 3:34 am (0634 GMT).

Chile quake far bigger but less deadly than Haiti

State television reported that more than 300 bodies had been found in the swamped fishing village of Constitucion, where survivors stared in disbelief at the seaweed clinging to the remains of their homes and businesses.

The government’s national emergency response office said the central Maule region was the hardest hit with 544 fatalities and at least 19 others were still missing but didn’t break the figures down any further.

President Michelle Bachelet, due to hand over power to Pinera on March 11, said the air force had begun flying in food and aid to badly-hit areas, including some largely cut off by the quake.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in Montevideo at the beginning of a Latin America tour that will include a brief stop in Chile on Tuesday, said she had spoken with Bachelet and was bringing satellite telephones with her.

“They have asked for communications equipment, some of which I’m bringing on our plane. Other technical equipment will be flown there in addition.”

Chile, one of Latin America’s wealthiest nations, is better equipped than most to withstand earthquakes, but the damage has still been estimated at between 15 and 30 billion dollars, or between 10 and 20 percent of its GDP.

Haiti still needs an enormous amount of help. They will for sometime to come.

Rains threaten more Haiti misery

Aid groups say the coming rainy season could bring more misery to quake-hit Haiti

Brazil’s president visited Haiti, pledging more financial assistance

February 26 2010

The first heavy rains have hit Haiti since last month’s devastating earthquake struck, swamping makeshift camps that house hundreds of thousands of homeless and raising fears of landslides and disease.

The rains late on Thursday came as forecasters warned of a large storm heading in Haiti’s direction that could strike over the weekend.

More than a million people were made homeless by the deadly January 12 quake, many of them now living in flimsy makeshift shelters that offer little protection from heavy rains.

Relief workers say the approaching wet season and the hurricane season later this year will likely add to misery for quake survivors struggling to rebuild their lives.

Even before the quake Haiti often suffered badly during the rain and hurricane seasons as a result of its poor infrastructure.

In 2008 a series of storms killed more than 800 people.

Now in the capital Port-au-Prince, some 770, 000 quake survivors are living in makeshift camps and with the onset of rains, the threat of disease and infection poses another great challenge.

‘Huge challenge’

“We have a huge challenge in terms of just providing emergency shelter – something that we feel that if we put all of our weight behind, as we are doing right now, we will be able (to do),” Kristen Knutson, a spokeswoman for the UN office that is coordinating the international relief effort, told Reuters news agency.

Instead, they want the homeless to pack up their tents and return to destroyed neighbourhoods.

Gerald-Emile Brun, an architect with the Haitian government’s reconstruction committee, told Reuters that “everything has to be done before the start of the rainy season, and we will not be able to do it”.

Brun also suggested that Haitians may largely be left to fend for themselves.

Haiti meanwhile is continuing to count the economic cost of the quake.

Call to cancel debt

On Thursday the country’s president, Rene Preval, said government assessments had indicated that the disaster would cost the already poor country up to 50 per cent of its gross domestic product.

“This earthquake… led to the deaths of 200,000 to 300,000 people and destroyed from 35 to 50 per cent of the GDP,” he said.

Preval was speaking reporters after meeting Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, his Brazilian counterpart at a UN-Brazilian military base in Port-au-Prince.

During his brief visit, Lula called on the international community to cancel Haiti’s debt, and officials from the two governments signed agreements to aid Haitian farmers and schools, which were hard hit in the quake.

According to the United Nations, 5,000 schools were damaged or destroyed in Haiti, which was already the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere before the catastrophe struck.

Lula also referred to a recent South American summit’s pledge of $300m in aid for Haiti, including an agreement to create a $100m fund to help the government with immediate needs. Source

Haiti’s debt with Venezuela is USD 295 million, about one-third of its global foreign debt of USD 1 billion, according to International Monetary Fund figures.

“Haiti has no debt with Venezuela — on the contrary, it is Venezuela that has a historic debt with Haiti,” Chavez said as he made the announcement.

Chavez was referring to the support that Haiti — which obtained its independence from France in 1804 — gave Venezuelan independence leader Simon Bolivar in 1815 and 1816 in his quest to free his country from Spanish colonial rule.

Chavez made the announcement at the closing ceremony of a meeting of foreign ministers from leftist countries with the ALBA trade alliance, a Cuba and Venezuela-supported regional common market founded in 2004.

Petrocaribe provides preferential oil pricing for its Caribbean members, with Venezuela picking up 40% of the cost if oil is selling over USD 50 a barrel.

When oil prices are above USD 50, member states will have up to 25 years to pay the bulk of the debt at a one percent interest rate, with two years grace.

Haiti, struggling to recover from the January 12 devastating 7.0 earthquake, received in the past days 225,000 barrels of Petrocaribe oil sent through the neighboring Dominican Republic.

Both Haiti and the Dominican Republic are Petrocaribe members.

Other Petrocaribe members include Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Bahamas, Belize, Cuba, Dominica, El Salvador, Grenada, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, Jamaica, Nicaragua, St Kitts-Nevis, Saint Lucia, St Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname and Trinidad and Tobago, as well as founding member Venezuela.

By Gareth Dorrian

A HAITIAN earthquake survivor cheated death for 11 days on a diet of biscuits and beer.

Unhu Wismond Exantus, 24, was buried in tons of rubble as he hid under a hotel desk.

Rescuers got the shop worker out of the remains of the Napoli Inn Hotel in Port-au-Prince, hours after the country’s Government had called a halt to rescue plans.

He said: “I ate anything I found. I survived by drinking beer and Coca-Cola and eating cookies.

“Every night I thought about the revelation that I would survive. It was God who was tucking me away in his arms. It gave me strength.”

Officials confirmed the death toll has passed 150,000, which only includes bodies dealt with by the government in and around Port-au-Prince.

Tens of thousands more victims have been buried in outlying areas, are trapped in rubble or their relatives have not registered the death.

Communications minister Marie-Laurence Jocelyn Lassegue said: “Nobody knows how many bodies are buried in the rubble. 200,000? 300,000? Who knows the overall death toll?”

The United Nations came under fire after it was revealed officers are living in relative luxury at the capital’s airport. Food, blankets and medicine have flooded in from around the world, but aid agencies admit it is not getting out fast enough.

Volunteers say efforts to help have been delayed by bureaucracy and red tape.

UN spokesman Alejandro Chicheri said: “Of course we would like to be doing more but the logistics are a nightmare.”

Save The Children has called for a ban on adopting Haitian children as gangs are kidnapping kids caught in the chaos and selling them for £5,000 a time.

The pair join Alexandra Burke, 21, and James Blunt, 36, recording a cover of REM’s Everybody Hurts in London today. Source

People world wide have united for Haiti. We must also keep watch to make sure, those who need help the most actually get it. We must be sure they are helped as they should be.

If we are to intervene in their lives may it be for the betterment of all the people of Haiti. Not just the rich. We must monitor our Governments and the UN.

Even through this devastation Haitians are being taken advantage of. How sad anyone would want to profit from their despair.

Profiteers are lining up at the door but that is yet another story for another day.

The History of Haitian life is what we must bring to light so it never happens again.

It is up to all of use to assure they have a better future to look forward to. Their past if horrid to say the least. The earthquake is absolute devastation. Aid workers are concerned on all fronts. Aid is still not reaching people. Children are being kidnapped.

In one of my updates US soldiers were told to stop giving Haitians food. Why? Do they want to starve the Haitians or make them angry. That is an act of deliberate cruelty. Beyond cruel in my opinion. the US is now sending 20,000 troops to Haiti for what to see to it they starve.

Letting in Aid workers and supplies has not been a priority. Why?

Seems there is much amiss in all of this.

Finally we have numerous reporters in Haiti, lets hope they will tell us the truth.

HIP – Fanmi Lavalas, Haiti’s largest political party and grassroots movement, laid Catholic liberation theology priest Father Gerard Jean-Juste to rest this past Thursday. A large banner waved overhead declaring “[Father] Jery you left us but the struggle continues” as thousands of mourners streamed out carrying Jean-Juste’s casket, sparking an impromptu pro-Lavalas demonstration. Chants of “The struggle continues, return Aristide” and “No elections without Lavalas” rang through the streets as a reminder that Lavalas is preparing to wage a second round of boycotts against the upcoming Senate elections scheduled for Sunday.

The procession and demonstration were suddenly interrupted by gunfire that could be heard from around the corner. Witnesses report that Brazilian soldiers with the U.N. military mission opened fire after attempting to arrest one of the mourners. The U.N. has since denied the shooting and claims that the victim had been killed by either a rock thrown by the crowd or a blunt instrument. Eyewitnesses on the scene have countered that the U.N. is trying to cover up the affair as it promises to heighten tensions before Sunday’s elections.

The U.N. and the Obama administration continue to endorse and finance a second round of controversial Senate elections in Haiti. The first round was held last April 19 and was marked by a low voter turnout following a successful boycott campaign waged by Fanmi Lavalas.

The Fanmi Lavalas party was excluded from participation in the first round after President Rene Preval’s handpicked Conseil Electoral Provisoire (CEP) demanded original signatures on all of their documents. With former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, their party’s national leader, in exile, Lavalas was unable to comply with what some in their ranks have referred to as “a humiliating last minute request.”

The powerful community organizations that form the base of the Lavalas movement then announced “Operation Closed Door,” urging voters to stay away from the polls. Independent observers put participation at between 3-4 percent, while the CEP announced it had been as high as 11 percent. Lavalas recently announced a boycott of the second round, called “Operation Closed Door 2,” and leaflets were distributed throughout the capital on Thursday urging voters to “stay away from the polls, end the exclusion [of Haiti’s largest political party].”

Members of the Lavalas Mobilization Commission, organizers of the boycott, are reportedly in hiding after CEP President Gerard Frantz Verret demanded last Thursday that the Ministry of Justice take “public action in motion against all those who undertake to invite the people to abstain from voting and against those who intend to endanger lives and property.” Public action in motion or “action publique” is a remnant of the Napoleonic Code in Haitian law and, like the term “associating with criminals,” is widely seen as a blanket charge to justify prolonged detention of political opposition in Haiti.

A second successful boycott of Sunday’s elections by Lavalas would serve to further damage the credibility of the Preval administration. The international community is reported to have invested over $12.9 million in an electoral process that many in Haiti say has provided little towards solving the country’s political insolvency and mounting desperation.

Haiti and America Latina: it is as it always was

Kevin Pina The Bush administration’s forced removal of democratically electedHaitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide, while a power-sharingdeal with his political opposition was being brokered in 2004,resulted in the country’s expulsion from the Caribbean Communityand was condemned by the African Union. The installation ofthe US-backed replacement government of Gerard Latortue hasresulted in the rape, torture and false imprisonment of thousandsof ordinary Haitians. The only Latin American country to condemnthe US’s action in Haiti, however, has been Venezuela. Othercountries and organisations like the Organization of AmericanStates (OAS) have been bought over with a massive programmeof civilian and military funding by the US. Source

I would have to say the rest of the world was kept in the dark about what happens in Haiti.

It was never in the main stream media. More times the not every attempt was made to keep it out of the eyes of the world at large.

Now it the time to expose what has been happening in Haiti.

Of course you still will not hear these stories in the main stream media. What you are hearing now is all the heros going to rescue them.

The earthquake is good PR for the US , Israel, Canada, France etc. and the UN, but the truth be told those in Haiti have been oppressed by all.

Now is the time to share the truth.

From December 25 2005

Heavily armed soldiers of the Brazilian military, which leads the UN
military mission to Haiti known as MINUSTAH, had earlier taken over a
building in Pele belonging to an accused drug dealer with alleged ties
to presidential candidate Guy Philippe. The troops were seen
reinforcing the facility with sand bags and equipment as a military
unit on the ground led a group of black-hooded residents through the
neighborhood on a mission to identify and target suspected “bandits”
for arrest. Twelve residents, ten men and two women, were reportedly
arrested based on the accusations of the hooded informants and were
taken away to an undisclosed UN facility. Several residents reacted
with shock and anger at the site of the black-hooded informants, a new
tactic apparently being used by the UN forces to pacify poor
neighborhoods in the capital. “This is really scary because we don’t
know who these hooded accusers are. We don’t even know if they are
really from our area. I just saw them arrest a man I have known for
years and who is not involved with anything violent. Where are they
taking him?” asked one angry woman who refused to give her name.

US Marines, Canadian Special Forces and troops of the French Foreign Legion were authorized by the UN Security Council to ‘stabilize’ Haiti following the ouster of president Jean-Bertrand Aristide on February 29, 2004. In June 2004, the United Nations sent the militaries of Brazil, Argentina and Chile to take control of Haiti with the objective of creating conditions for new elections. The Brazilian armed forces were given overall control of the military component of the UN operation.

On February 19, 2008, Brazilian military forces stormed the neighborhood of Village de Dieu on the outskirts of the capital of Port-au-Prince. Their troops entered with weapons drawn and began a massive sweep with UN police in tow that ended with the arrest of dozens of young men in the area. Residents claim this military incursion was executed without a single warrant being presented from Haiti’s courts or just cause. Residents of poor communities throughout Haiti say that terrifying raids led by Brazilian forces have been common occurrences since they arrived in 2004. For the families of those arrested and left traumatized by these incursions, it raises serious questions about the role Brazilian forces have played in Haiti.

January 20 2010 Update

Haiti needs water, not occupation

The US has never wanted Haitian self-rule, and its focus on ‘security concerns’ has hampered the earthquake aid response

By Mark Weisbrot

January 20 2010

On Monday, six days after the earthquake in Haiti, the US Southern Command finally began to drop bottled water and food from an air force C-17. US defence secretary Robert Gates had previously rejected such a method because of “security concerns”.

If people do not get clean water, there could be epidemics of water-borne diseases that could greatly increase the death toll. But the US is now sending 10,000 troops and seems to be prioritising “security” over much more urgent, life-and-death needs. This in addition to the increase of 3,500 UN troops scheduled to arrive.

On Sunday, Jarry Emmanuel, air logistics officer for the UN’s World Food Programme, said: “There are 200 flights going in and out every day, which is an incredible amount for a country like Haiti … But most flights are for the US military.”

We’ve been circulating throughout the city until 2:00 and 3:00 in the morning every night, evacuating patients, moving materials. There’s no UN guards. There’s no US military presence. There’s no Haitian police presence. And there’s also no violence. There is no insecurity.

To understand the US government’s obsession with “security concerns,” we must look at the recent history of Washington’s involvement there.

Long before the earthquake, Haiti’s plight has been comparable to that of many homeless people on city streets in the US: too poor and too black to have the same effective constitutional and legal rights as other citizens. In 2002, when a US-backed military coup temporarily toppled the elected government of Venezuela, most governments in the hemisphere responded quickly and helped force the return of democratic rule. But two years later, when Haiti’s democratically elected president Jean-Bertrand Aristide was kidnapped by the US and flown to exile in Africa, the response was muted.

Unlike the two centuries of looting and pillage of Haiti since its founding by a slave revolt in 1804, the brutal occupation by US marines from 1915 to 1934, the countless atrocities under dictatorships aided and abetted by Washington, the 2004 coup cannot be dismissed as “ancient history.” It was just six years ago, and it is directly relevant to what is happening there now.

The US, together with Canada and France, conspired openly for four years to topple Haiti’s elected government, cutting off almost all international aid in order to destroy the economy and make the country ungovernable. They succeeded. For those who wonder why there are no Haitian government institutions to help with the earthquake relief efforts, this is a big reason. Or why there are 3 million people crowded into the area where the earthquake hit. US policy over the years also helped destroy Haitian agriculture, for example, by forcing the import of subsidised US rice and wiping out thousands of Haitian rice farmers.

Aristide, the country’s first democratically elected president, was overthrown after just seven months in 1991, by military officers and death squads later discovered to be in the pay of the CIA. Now Aristide wants to return to his country, something that the majority of Haitians have demanded since his overthrow. But the US does not want him there. And the René Préval government, which is completely beholden to Washington, has decided that Aristide’s party – the largest in Haiti – will not be allowed to compete in the next elections (originally scheduled for next month).

Washington’s fear of democracy in Haiti may explain why the US is now sending 15,000 troops and prioritizing “security” over other needs.

This military occupation by US troops will raise other concerns in the hemisphere, depending on how long they stay – just as the recent expansion of the US military presence in Colombia has been met with considerable discontent and distrust in the region. And non-governmental organisations have raised other issues about the proposed reconstruction: understandably they want Haiti’s remaining debt cancelled, and grants rather than loans (the IMF has proposed a $100m dollar loan). Reconstruction needs will be in the billions of dollars: will Washington encourage the establishment of a functioning government? Or will it prevent that, channelling aid through NGOs and taking over various functions itself, because it of its long-standing opposition to Haitian self-rule?

But most urgently, there is a need for rapid delivery of water. The US air force has the capability to deliver enough water for everyone who needs it in Haiti, until ground supply chains can be established. The more water is available, the less likely there is to be fighting or rioting over this scarce resource. Food and medical supplies could also be supplied through air drops. These operations should be ramped up, immediately. There is no time to lose.

International aid may at be last trickling, painfully slowly, into the rubble-strewn centre of Port-au-Prince. But in this filthy shanty town half an hour’s drive away, where families sleep five or six to small shacks, next to none has arrived. And the poorest of the poor complain that their plight is being forgotten.

“We don’t have doctors, we don’t have food, we don’t have water,” said Louis Jean Jaris, a 29-year-old resident. “The aid comes to Haiti, but it goes elsewhere. In Cité Soleil we are all victims, just like everyone else, but compared to the rest of the country, we are a low priority. To the people in power, we are not considered to be victims.”

If they are wondering why people are getting angry it’s no wonder. It has been 9 DAYS.

The US needs to get it’s bloody priorities straight. This is not a military invasion this is a rescue mission. Isn’t it? Or is it a military invasion just using the earthquake as an excuse.

US says will increase troops in Haiti to to above 15,000

January 21 2010

The amphibious assault ship USS Nassau (LHA 4) will be stationed in Haiti.

Why, Why, Why?

Amid growing concerns of Latin American leaders over the presence of the US military in Haiti, Washington plans to send 4,000 troops to the quake-hit country.

A statement from the US Second Fleet Wednesday stated that the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Michael Mullen, has made the decision to dispatch the troops.

The 2,000 sailors and 2,000 marines are from the Nassau Amphibious Ready Group and the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, according to the statement. Their deployment will increase the number of US troops in Haiti to above 15,000.

Three amphibious ships, the USS Nassau, the USS Mesa Verde and the USS Ashland, will support the latest mission, bringing the total number of US Navy and Military Sealift Command vessels to 20.

A 7.0-magnitude quake struck Haiti last week, killing at least 75,000 people and perhaps as many as 200,000. Almost 250,000 people were injured and around 1.5 million people are without shelter.

Meanwhile, the presence of the US military, which has taken command of distribution of humanitarian aid, has raised the ire of some South American leaders, with the presidents of Bolivia, Nicaragua and Venezuela condemning the US role.

Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez accused the US of seeking to occupy the quake-stricken nation. “The United States government is using a humanitarian tragedy to militarily occupy Haiti. I read somewhere that they even occupied the [presidential] palace.”

Bolivian leader Evo Morales said that he would seek UN condemnation of the “US military occupation.”

In Europe, France spoke out against the US role, demanding the United Nations to investigate and clarify the US military presence in Haiti.

Three days after the quake, US paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne Division took control of the main airport in the capital Port-au-Prince.

The US says its primary mission is to speed distribution of aid, in part by providing security at distribution points and escorting aid convoys.

In the past, Washington has been accused of interfering in Haitian internal affairs on many occasions. The US military played a role in the departure of the former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide before his second term was over in early 2004. Source

Seems this is preparing for war not aid. This should be questioned by everyone the world over.

People are wondering all over the world. What is really going on?

Aid workers are having a difficult time, getting to where they are needed.

If the US is going to take control of everything they had better get it together and soon.

This is Hurricane Katrina all over again. Now I know for sure.

The time factor is a real indication. When people get angry they accuse them of being violent blah blah blah and so the story of BS goes.

They nor the UN or NATO have been good to Haitians in the past.

Military personnel wold make them feel fearful if anything.

How stupid do the US, UN and NATO think we all are?

Soldiers in Haiti told to stop handing out food

By Jim Michaels
January 20, 2010

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Food handouts were shut off Tuesday to thousands of people at a tent city here when the main U.S. aid agency said the Army should not be distributing the packages.

It was not known whether the action reflected a high-level policy decision at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) or confusion in a city where dozens of entities are involved in aid efforts.

“We are not supposed to get rations unless approved by AID,” Maj. Larry Jordan said.

Jordan said that approval was revoked; water was not included in the USAID decision, so the troops continued to hand out bottles of water. The State Department and USAID did not respond to requests for comment.

Jordan has been at the airport supervising distribution of individual food packages and bottled water since his arrival last week. Each package provides enough calories to sustain a person for a day.

The food is flown by helicopter to points throughout the capital and distributed by paratroopers of the 82nd Airborne Division. At the tent city, set up at a golf course, more than 10,000 people displaced by the Haitian earthquake lay under makeshift tents. Each day, hundreds of people, many young children, line up for a meal.

Tuesday morning, the helicopters came only with water. Soldiers carried boxes of water in the hot sun and supervised Haitian volunteers who handed the supplies out. Source

All of the above mentioned owe Haiti. I am sure some of the past deeds equal war crimes and crimes against humanity. They had better not fluff to much it makes them look like hypocrites.

Considering everything they have done, to those in Haiti in the past that is. It’s a long dreadful history.

Considering the size of Haiti, there must be something extremely important about it or the US and company would have allowed the people to be free. What is it that makes Haiti so special?

Could it be oil? Could it be it’s proximity to Cuba?

Help Haiti rebuild then leave them to be free. Stop stealing their resources. When they elect a new leader, don’t kidnap him.

Some how it reminds me all to often of Gaza and the West Bank.

Haiti: Small Victory for Shock Resistance

In response to the wave ofcriticism, the IMF has just issued a statement saying that they will try to turn the $100-million loan to Haiti into a grant.

__

Today, the IMF put out an announcement clarifying the terms of its new loan to Haiti–it’s “an interest-free loan of $100 million in emergency funds.” A spokesman for the IMF told me that “the US$100 million loan does not carry any conditionality. It is an emergency loan aimed at getting the Haitian economy back to function again…” The IMF’s managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn said in a statement that the IMF would immediately work to cancel the entirety of Haiti’s debt ($265 million) to the fund: Source

February 22 2008

So what if anything has changed. Seems the earthquake is giving the US a reason to move in even more troops. How convenient. Haiti has something they want obviously if not oil, what?

A Regina couple says their plan to adopt two Haitian teenagers is shrouded in doubt after last week’s devastating earthquake, which damaged the youngsters’ orphanage and cut off the couple’s ability to communicate with the lawyer who was working on their case.

They have become the most vulnerable victims of Haiti’s devastating earthquake. Before the catastrophic events almost half of the population was under 18-years-old.

Many now have been left bewildered, bruised and lonely.

In these ruins of a school the children had come to learn. It was here too they were fed their main meal of the day. Now they are hungry and abandoned.

A woman explains: “I have nothing for them my pocket, not even plain rice to help these children to live, there is nothing, nothing.” “I have nothing I am going to boil up mint tea with some salt.”

In the fog of figures emerging from Haiti it is reckoned that before the quake there were 380,000 children living in orphanages. Such scenes suggest there will be a dramatic rise in those numbers. A woman holding a child says: “Her parents are dead. I will look after her.”

Protection is critical. The UN is setting up a mission on the ground to do just that, protection against trafficking, kidnapping and sex abuse.

Julie Bergeron, UNICEF: “It would be very easy for certain people to be involved, trafficking these children, especially as they do not have birth certificates. There are many children who will go from here as their parents will always believe they are dead.”

In a field hospital in Port-au-Prince the medical team have saved the life of a five-month-old baby. He has no name, just a number. No one knows who the boys family is or if they are alive. What will happen to him when he has been treated. Such are the now daily dilemmas for the children of this quake. Source

// Haiti earthquake

One in a million: the girl in a tartan dress who symbolises the orphan crisis facing Haiti

Wyclef and Evry, two-year-old orphans at the Foyer de Sion home in Pétionville Photo Independent

9-year-old Wideline Fils Amie lost both her parents in the Haiti earthquake Photo Independent

By Guy Adams in Port-au-Prince

January 20 2010

Her name is Wideline Fils Amie. She is nine years old. Both her parents are dead, and her only possession is the red tartan dress on her back. For the past week, she’s been living and sleeping in the indescribably filthy back-yard of the Foyer de Sion orphanage in Pétionville. When you ask how she is feeling, Wideline whispers two words, through her broken teeth: “hungry” and “scared”.

Eighteen boys and girls, aged two to 15, are holed-up behind the tattered two-storey building in the hills just outside Port-au-Prince. Their food reserves consist of three bags of rice, three bags of beans, a few yams, and half a bottle of orange cordial. As of yesterday morning, they hadn’t a single drop of drinking water left. And a week after the earthquake that flattened their city, the orphanage has not received a single batch of aid.

“I don’t know why,” says Pascale Mardy, the orphanage’s manager. “We have almost nothing left. When the earthquake happened, I had $100 in my pocket to buy food. Now I have spent the last dollar, so we are down to one meal a day. We are in trouble.”

It’s the same story across Port-au-Prince, where a dysfunctional aid effort is still only slowly creaking into action. Huge reserves of supplies sit on the runway of the city’s airport. For the entire story go HERE

Who said we are shut up inside our Tel Aviv bubble? How many small nations surrounded by enemies set up field hospitals on the other side of the world? Give us an earthquake in Haiti, a tsunami in Thailand or a terror attack in Kenya, and the IDF Spokesman’s Office will triumph. A cargo plane can always be found to fly in military journalists to report on our fine young men from the Home Front Command.

Everyone is truly doing a wonderful job: the rescuers, searching for survivors; the physicians, saving lives; and the reporters, too, who are rightfully patting them all on the back. After Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon became the face we show the world, the entire international community can now see Israel’s good side.

But the remarkable identification with the victims of the terrible tragedy in distant Haiti only underscores the indifference to the ongoing suffering of the people of Gaza. Only a little more than an hour’s drive from the offices of Israel’s major newspapers, 1.5 million people have been besieged on a desert island for two and a half years. Who cares that 80 percent of the men, women and children living in such proximity to us have fallen under the poverty line? How many Israelis know that half of all Gazans are dependent on charity, that Operation Cast Lead created hundreds of amputees, that raw sewage flows from the streets into the sea?

The Israeli newspaper reader knows about the baby pulled from the wreckage in Port-au-Prince. Few have heard about the infants who sleep in the ruins of their families’ homes in Gaza. The Israel Defense Forces prohibition of reporters entering the Gaza Strip is an excellent excuse for burying our heads in the sand of Tel Aviv’s beaches; on a good day, the sobering reports compiled by human rights organizations such as B’Tselem, Gisha – Legal Center for Freedom of Movement, and Physicians for Human Rights-Israel on the situation in Gaza are pushed to the newspapers’ back pages. To get an idea of what life is like in the world’s largest prison, one must forgo “Big Brother” and switch to one of the foreign networks.

The disaster in Haiti is a natural one; the one in Gaza is the unproud handiwork of man. Our handiwork. The IDF does not send cargo planes stuffed with medicines and medical equipment to Gaza. The missiles that Israel Air Force combat aircraft fired there a year ago hit nearly 60,000 homes and factories, turning 3,500 of them into rubble. Since then, 10,000 people have been living without running water, 40,000 without electricity. Ninety-seven percent of Gaza’s factories are idle due to Israeli government restrictions on the import of raw materials for industry. Soon it will be one year since the international community pledged, at the emergency conference in Sharm el-Sheikh, to donate $4.5 billion for Gaza’s reconstruction. Israel’s ban on bringing in building materials is causing that money to lose its value.

A few days before Israeli physicians rushed to save the lives of injured Haitians, the authorities at the Erez checkpoint prevented 17 people from passing through in order to get to a Ramallah hospital for urgent corneal transplant surgery. Perhaps they voted for Hamas. At the same time that Israeli psychologists are treating Haiti’s orphans with devotion, Israeli inspectors are making sure no one is attempting to plant a doll, a notebook or a bar of chocolate in a container bringing essential goods into Gaza. So what if the Goldstone Commission demanded that Israel lift the blockade on the Strip and end the collective punishment of its inhabitants? Only those who hate Israel could use frontier justice against the first country to set up a field hospital in Haiti.

True, Haiti’s militias are not firing rockets at Israel. But the siege on Gaza has not stopped the Qassams from coming. The prohibition of cilantro, vinegar and ginger being brought into the Strip since June 2007 was intended to expedite the release of Gilad Shalit and facilitate the fall of the Hamas regime. As everyone knows, even though neither mission has been particularly successful, and despite international criticism, Israel continues to keep the gates of Gaza locked. Even the images of our excellent doctors in Haiti cannot blur our ugly face in the Strip. Source

After surviving more than 5 days in the rubble, two victims were pulled alive from the wreckage of a collapsed Haiti supermarket late on Sunday to applause from amazed onlookers. (Jan. 18)

Had help arrived sooner many more would have been saved. Unfortunately it took far to long for help to arrive.

One would thing after Hurricane Katrina and the Tsunami they would be better organized for such catastrophes.

Haiti text donations won’t get there until your billing cycle ends

Millions were raised in 48 hours for organizations like the Red Cross and Wyclef Jean’s Yele Haiti foundation. (You can watch Wyclef’s response to financial criticisms of his charity here.) As of Friday, people texting “Haiti” to 90999 had donated $8m to the Red Cross specifically for Haitian earthquake relief. The damage is immense, suffering in Haiti is off the charts bad, and Haitians desperately need the financial relief that these charities can provide. The bad news? Any donations made via text message to these charities won’t be forwarded to their intended recipients until after your billing cycle ends:

Fractured Narrative: Haitian Calm, American Cynicism

One can almost feel the disappointment amongst Western media mavens that earthquake-stricken Haitians have not, in fact, degenerated into packs of feral animals tearing each other to pieces. Day after day, every single possible isolated incident of panic, anger, “looting” (as the removal of provisions from ruined stores by starving people is called) and vigilantism has been highlighted — and often headlined — by the most “respectable” news sources.

If you need food and water etc, Yes you would breaking into a store and take it. That is not looting it is survival. I would do the same thing wouldn’t you.

During Hurricane Katrina some of the press said the same horrid things when in fact much of it was not true.

Some were even arrested for doing nothing wrong whatsoever. I remember.

Witness to a nightmare

Interview with Jesse Hagopian who was in Port-au-Prince with his 1-year-old son to visit his wife when the earthquake hit. His wife, an aid worker, works until the evening on most days, but by sheer luck, she came to the hotel where they were staying early on Tuesday–just minutes before the quake struck at 4:53 p.m. This spared Jesse and his family agonizing hours or days trying to find one another amid the chaos.

Port-au-Prince/Paris /New York, 17 January 2009—Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) urges that its cargo planes carrying essential medical and surgical material be allowed to land in Port-au-Prince in order to treat thousands of wounded waiting for vital surgical operations. Priority must be given immediately to planes carrying lifesaving equipment and medical personnel.

One has to wonder how many other Aid agency’s are having the same problem? This should be a priority. The US military is running the airport in Haiti.

Specially trained international teams continue to search for and rescue trapped victims throughout Haiti, but many of those saved are in dire need of medical care. More relief organizations and troops are arriving, but with communication limitations and travel restrictions, the desperately needed food, water and supplies are not reaching people fast enough. The frustration over the delay has left many wondering if the U.S. has done enough to help, and who will take charge in the coming days to protect the injured and homeless?

Palestinians in Gaza set off for the Red Cross headquarters on Monday to offer donations and financial support for the victims of Haiti’s devastating earthquake on Tuesday.

WOW is all I can say to that one. It breaks my heart to know what they are going through, but this is very heart warming at the same time.

France is demanding the United Nations investigateand clarify the dominant US role in Haiti, after Washington deployed over 10,000 troops to the quake-hit country.

The demand came after US forces turned back a French aid plane carrying a field hospital from the main airport in the Haitian capital.

The Pentagon says it has deployed soldiers in Haiti to help victims of Tuesday’s earthquake. This comes as US paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne Division took control of the main airport in the capital Port-au-Prince on Friday.

The move has raised ire among aid agencies with extensive experience of operating in disaster zones.

“This is about helping Haiti, not about occupying Haiti,” France’s Cooperation Minister Alain Joyandet said in an emergency EU meeting concerning Haiti on Monday.

He added that he expects a UN decision on how governments should work together in Haiti, while demanding a clarification of the United States’ role in the Caribbean nation.

Joyandet’s remarks echo those made by Venezuela and Nicaragua that expressed “deep concern” over the US deployment of troops in Haiti.

US secretary of state Hillary Clinton whose country is also blamed for not being quick enough to send aid to the quake-hit nation has denied the occupation charges, stressing on Saturday that the White House had no intention of taking power from Haitian officials.

The US has been accused of interfering in Haitian internal affairs in the past.

The US military played a role in the departure of the former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide before his second term was over in early 2004. Aristide has described his departure as a kidnapping.

Last week’s 7.0 magnitude earthquake in Haiti is estimated to have left some 200,000 people dead and more than 1.5 million homeless, with at least 70,000 bodies collected from the rubble so far. Source

Well the US has interfered many times. This is one I have a few more somewhere just have to find them. But this is a start. Haitian’s also have a fear of US soldiers and for good reason…. Seems no one has bothered to mention that of course.

Coincidentally this was just the day before the London Bombings 7/7 and was pretty much totally ignored by the media. I guess they thought no one would notice.